


Keep You Safe (With Me)

by kitkatt0430



Series: Hartmon Bingo 2020 [20]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apartment Fire, Asexual Wally West, Caitlin and Frost can't bring themselves to stay away, Cisco promises to keep Hartley safe, Cisco stepping up as team leader, Hartley and Wally are friends now, Hartley is a trouble magnet, Hartley is bad at staying in protective custody, M/M, Team Dynamics, post season three au, what if Cisco and Wally actually got to be big damn heroes that summer?, what makes an adequate apology?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26684512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkatt0430/pseuds/kitkatt0430
Summary: Hartley Rathaway finds himself at the heart of yet another scandal when he uncovers embezzlement and intellectual thefts happening at Mercury Labs that places his life in danger.  Though at least this time his employer actually has his back.Unfortunately, the Flash disappeared into a lightning storm earlier that month and the remaining members of Team Flash are still trying to figure out how to make things work without Barry there.  If they're going to be able to protect Hartley, then Cisco is going to have to step up and learn how to lead the team.
Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Hartley Rathaway, Jesse "Quick" Wells/Wally West
Series: Hartmon Bingo 2020 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656343
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the Hartmon Bingo prompt G2 - Oaths/Promises
> 
> Should be three chapters long, but that depends on how much of a life of it's own this thing takes on.

Hartley still isn't sure how he gets into these situations.

Too observant for his own good is the conclusion Hartley eventually reaches. Too detail oriented. He saw the inconsistencies in the pipeline and couldn't let them go. Ruined his career over them. And it was happening all over again.

There'd been inconsistencies again. Budgets that didn't add up and money going where it didn't belong. And when he looked harder, he saw something else going on too. Clandestine meetings with people who tracked back to rival labs. It's a mess. It's an awful mess.

Hartley closed his eyes and took a shaky breath, clutching the files of evidence of what he's found close to his chest. He has a meeting in a few minutes with Dr. McGee to show her what he's found and he's terrified. It's a completely different situation - completely different people involved - but the last time he found a problem at work it nearly destroyed him. It lost him his ability to have faith in authority figures. So while rationally he knows that Dr. McGee isn't going to shoot the messenger...

He's still nervous and scared. He can't deal with having his career ruined again. It'd break him permanently. Hartley pulled back from the edge once when he was inches from rock bottom, brought back by Cisco's desperate decision to trust Hartley to stop the Time Wraith chasing Cisco and Caitlin. He's not sure he could do that again; give up his anger at being punished for doing the right thing. 

His cell phone trills with the meeting reminder and Hartley takes a deep breath before heading to McGee's office.

It'll all be okay, he tells himself. It'll all be okay.

* * *

Tina's head drops into her hands once Hartley exited the room. Embezzlement and what was likely the sale of company secrets. And then there was Hartley's clear fear that he was going to get in trouble for bringing this forward.

She'd wanted to hire Rathaway straight of out college, but Harrison snapped that poor kid up and... she'd known Harrison would cause irreparable damage. He always did, one way or another.

Sighing, Tina picked up the phone. Dialed the number for Captain David Singh. And flipped through the evidence Hartley had brought her again. At least two cases of embezzlement and another scientist selling secrets... all right there under her nose. It didn't make the lab look good, that was for sure.

She was going to have to do a full budgetary audit of all projects and hire an outside investigator to look for any other leaks. It was going to be a mess. But hopefully... hopefully what Hartley had found would prove to be the end of it and maybe she could restore just a little Hartley's faith in other people in the process.

"Captain Singh," came from her phone's speaker.

"Captain, this is Dr. McGee from Mercury Labs. I wish I was calling under better circumstances, but I'm going to need a few of your detectives..."

* * *

Cisco groaned softly and rubbed at his eyes. They were scratchy and his head hurt. He'd been staring at a screen for way too long and missed dinner. Which meant he was going to wind up having take out again. 

Caitlin would be pissed at him. She used to... 

It didn't matter. She wasn't here. She was off... finding herself. And she deserved to get away from all of this.

Cisco had no right to be angry with her.

The meta alert went off and Cisco resisted the urge to cover his ears and made a distressed noise instead, even as he got up and slapped the button to disable the alarm on his way out of his lab towards the cortex. He pulled up the alert data as soon as he reached the big screens and muttered under his breath as he saw it was centered on an apartment complex. The address looked familiar, but Cisco's head was pounding too much for him to focus on why. He dialed Wally.

"There's a fire at an apartment complex," Cisco reported when Wally picked up the phone. "I need you to meet me there. Report to the firefighter in charge to find out where they need you most, okay?"

"Got it," Wally responded, before shutting off the call. He was on comms in moments while Cisco put his comm on too, headed to where he kept his Vibe suit.

Cisco suited up fast, listening while Wally got the lay of the land from the firefighters. Then he breached over to join them, getting the locations of people trapped in the upper floors while Wally was sent to put out the worst of the blaze. 

Another breach and Cisco was standing in a smoke filled hallway. There were several residents clustered together near a large window. He called them over, sending them through the open breach. He counted in his head and caught the attention of one the survivors. "I was told there were still seventeen people up here, but this is only twelve. Do you know where the remaining five people are?"

"Could be Doreen - she's old and wasn't answering when we banged on her door," the man said, gesturing to a door labeled 233. "James and his kids are out on vacation, so they may have been counted even though they're not actually here. Everyone else answered their doors when I banged on the door... except Rathaway. He works late sometimes..."

"Which apartment is his?" Cisco asked, chest tightening with worry. No wonder he'd recognized the address. This was where Hartley had moved after starting at Mercury Labs. 

Cisco closed the breach behind the last of the twelve in the hallway and leans into his powers, checking on the door indicated to be where James and his two kids lived. He got a flash of laughter and a sunset on a beach somewhere. They were fine. He breached into Doreen's apartment next.

She was out cold in bedroom, likely injured falling when she'd been startled by the fire alarm. She was breathing shallowly and Cisco wasn't sure he should move her on his own. Another breach, and he went through to get paramedics, letting them get Doreen while Cisco handed one of them a breach device so that they could get out while he checked on Hartley's apartment.

Another unconscious body greeted Cisco, though Hartley startled awake woozily when Cisco touched his shoulder.

"'Sco," Hartley said, voice scratchy from too much smoke. There was a gash on his forehead that was bleeding sluggishly. "What... what's going on?"

"The building is on fire and..." Cisco opened up another breach to outside the building. "I really need to get you out of here, okay Hartley?" And then maybe Cisco could get some answers because... it looked like someone had attacked Hartley and left him there to die in the fire.

* * *

Hartley's still kind of fuzzy when Cisco takes him through the breach and hands him off to paramedics. He has to make an effort to remember to call Cisco 'Vibe' while he's in costume, but he doesn't have to worry about that for long before EMTs are bandaging his head and flashing lights in his eyes and then whisking him away in an ambulance out of concern that he might have a concussion on top of the smoke inhalation. 

He's doing better by the time his parents show up, his mother wringing her hands in worry while his father talks to the doctors, hearing from them the same thing Hartley already has. He's been given a prescription for an emergency inhaler to take the place of the one that was still in his apartment. No concussion, thankfully, but there was concern about his lungs due to his asthma. There was also a prescription for antibiotics as a preventative and he was supposed to come back for a checkup at their general clinic in a few days to check on how his lungs were recovering. Hartley'd given the okay to have his parents updated, knowing that his father would probably throw a fit if he couldn't get answers from the doctor's directly.

Hartley was allowed to walk out of the hospital under his own power, collapsing gratefully into the back seat of his parents car.

He hadn't stayed the night in his parents house since before he'd come out and been disowned, so that was going to be awkward. And worse... well, Hartley wasn't sure he'd be safe there. But he wasn't prepared to tell his parents why that was.

He didn't have his wallet or his keys or his phone... and Hartley really wanted his phone right now. 

"I need to..." Hartley stopped and coughed, rubbing his throat and upper chest, both of which felt uncomfortably raw. Tea and hot showers were both apparently both right out for now, as the heat of the former and the humidity of the latter might irritate his lungs. Though he did need to take at least a... warm, if not hot, shower in order to wash off the smell of the smoke on him.

He didn't have any clean clothes, so that went on the list of things he needed his parents to pick up for him...

"I need to borrow one of your phones so I can let Dr. McGee know I won't be in to work tomorrow. And let my friends know I'm safe," Hartley tried again, this time managing to get out complete sentences without interrupting himself with more coughing.

He really needed some cough drops. 

"Of course," his mother held out her own phone. "I'm sure you'll want to wait until you have some privacy, but I'll be heading out to pick up some necessities for you once we get home." She handed him a pen and pad of paper. "Clothing sizes and whatever else you'd like me to pick up."

Just a few years ago, Hartley wouldn't have been able to count on his parents to do anything other than deny his existence. And yet here they were now, picking him up from the hospital, offering to buy him things, giving him a place to stay... 

"Thank you," he said, accepting the paper and feeling choked up for reasons other than smoke damage.

Once at the house, his mother gave him a hug before driving off with his list while his father took him to one of the guest rooms with a jack-and-jill bathroom attached to it. With reluctance, Osgood left Hartley alone in the room, promising to drop off some clean clothes to wear while he showered.

Hartley unlocked his mother's phone and called Dr. McGee first.

"Are you alright?" she asked immediately upon hearing Hartley's voice. "The fire is all over the news..."

"Vibe got me out," he said, well aware she knew Vibe was Cisco. "I'm fine. A little smoke inhalation issues, but... I'm probably going to just sleep all day tomorrow. So I won't be in to the office."

"Of course not. Take the rest of the week off and get some rest." 

Hartley had an asthma attack at work once back at STAR Labs. Harrison had only given Hartley the day off with reluctance. Because it was so hard to do without Hartley, of course. He was indispensable. And easily flattered, at the time. Hartley had come so close to being manipulated into putting work before his health concerns...

"Thank you," Hartley rasped out, feeling something lift off his shoulders.

"Is there anything I can do to help? Do you have somewhere you can stay?"

"My parents are letting me stay with them," Hartley told her. "It's... weird but okay for now." She was aware that though he was on relatively good terms with his parents now, that they'd once disowned him. 

"Alright," Tina said. "But if you need anything, just call."

"I will," he promised.

The next call he needed to make was to Cisco, but... that could wait. 

Hartley left the phone on the bed and went to shower, the temperature cooler than he normally liked but not too cold either. He felt significantly better afterwards... if also significantly sleepier too. Thankfully there were indeed clean clothes waiting for him on the bed by the phone when he padded back into the bedroom, having left his smokey clothes behind on the bathroom floor. He could clean those up tomorrow. He slipped into a pair of sweatpants that Hartley was surprised his father even owned and an over sized sweatshirt that Hartley had to kind of... stare at for a long moment. Because it was his sweatshirt. While most of his college clothes wouldn't fit him anymore, this... he'd bought this his first year of college. Deliberately got a size far too large from his college's campus store... it was his favorite to wear on weekends or days when weather led to canceled classes. He'd thought he'd lost it. Thought for sure his parents must've thrown it out with all this things.

But here it was... an unexpected comfort on a very bad night. 

Hartley slipped on the sweater and snuggled into it. The sweater wasn't quite as big on him as it used to be, but still a larger size than he normally wore. And it smelled freshly laundered too. He rubbed at his face, wiping away tears and careful not to scratch at the stitches on his forehead. Then he clambered into the bed, buried himself in blankets, and dialed Cisco's phone number from memory.

"Hello?" Cisco greeted.

"Hey Cisco," Hartley responded. "It's Hartley." 

"How are you? Doing better? I mean, obviously, you're on the phone..."

"Slow down, Cisco. I'm on my mother's phone since everything is in my apartment. Do you know if the fire reached my floor?"

Cisco took a shaky breath. "Uh, no, it... um... smoke everywhere from the stair wells, but the fire only made it as far as the floor beneath yours. Hartley what happened to you? I was hoping you were working late or something, which is why I checked on your neighbor Doreen first, but then you were on the floor and your head was bleeding..."

"I'm glad you got Doreen out okay," Hartley interrupted again, a little amused despite himself. "She is okay, right?"

"She broke her hip when she fell to the floor." Odds were that Doreen wouldn't be coming back, then. Her family had been trying to get her to move to an assisted living facility and this was probably the event that would win them the argument. "I loaned the paramedics a breach device so they could get her out while I went for you. Wally got it back for me." Cisco made a pained sound.

"Are you okay?"

"Headache. Too much time staring at a screen followed by too many breaches and using my visions. And minor smoke inhalation issues." Cisco sighed softly. "I'm fine."

"Caitlin checked you over?"

Cisco went silent save for his breathing.

"Is something wrong with Caitlin?" 

"She's not here right now. I'm not even sure she's in Central. She needed... she needed some time. To figure things out with her alter ego. So... it's just me and Wally right now." Cisco sounded rough.

Hartley rubbed at his forehead. "Please tell me you at least used the medical equipment to check yourself over?"

"Yeah. I did. Well I scanned Wally and he scanned me and we're both fine." Cisco's response was less than reassuring. "But, seriously, what happened to lay you out like that?"

"There was someone in my apartment when I got home. Snooping through my stuff, I don't know what for... unless..." Hartley let out a shaky breath of his own. "I found evidence of embezzlement and industrial espionage. I took to Dr. McGee and she's acting on it, reached out to the CCPD and is conducting a full audit of Mercury Labs finances. So... the fire might be my fault."

"The fire isn't your fault, Hartley," Cisco refuted.

"Aside from Doreen and I, who else was hurt?"

"Minor smoke damage. Most people got out when the fire alarms went off."

"The alarms weren't running when I woke up," Hartley recalled dimly. "That should've woken me up. Something so loud and painful..."

"Unless it was causing you enough pain that it kept you unconscious instead," Cisco posited. "You woke up when I got there. I'm just glad you're going to be okay." There was a bit of a pause. "Do you mind if I come by tomorrow? Just to... to see for myself you're okay? I can bring Joe with me and you can give a statement about the intruder in your apartment..."

"Yeah. Sure. Cisco, if I'm right and I was assaulted because of what's happening at my workplace... I'm concerned staying with my parents will put them at risk."

"Do you think you'll be fine for tonight?"

"Yeah. God... all my stuff is gonna smell like smoke," Hartley groaned and leaned back into his pillows. 

"If you need help getting everything cleaned up and aired out, just call. I need reasons to get out of STAR Labs anyway. I think I'm going stir crazy in this place."

"Go home, Cisco. Go to sleep." Hartley smiled when he heard a noise of assent. "I'll see you tomorrow."

* * *

Cisco does as Hartley tells him. He goes home. He goes to sleep.

In the morning, he goes to see Dr. McGee. He doesn't have an appointment, which annoys her the lobby secretary, but he doesn't have to wait more than a few minutes before Tina shows up to talk to him. They go for a walk around the block and she fills Cisco in on what Hartley'd found and a general status on the investigations. 

"Hartley may have uncovered more than either of you realized," Cisco observed quietly. "Someone broke into his apartment before the fire; they were looking for something. Hartley thinks its connected to what discovered." He shook his head. "After what happened with the accelerator, it's not fair this is happening to him now..."

"I'm glad he has you looking after him," McGee tells him and Cisco smiles hollowly in response.

His track record at looking after people wasn't so great. Ronnie, Dr. Wells, Jay, Dante, Caitlin, HR... his own name could go on that list. It was only luck that neither Cisco nor Caitlin's deaths had been permanent. Well... luck on Cisco's behalf. Caitlin was only alive because Julian had ignored her stated wishes regarding her powers and Cisco had failed to stop him.

And of course there was Barry. Barry who was stuck in the speed force, depending on Cisco to find him a way out. Barry... who they were all mourning like he was dead.

What good was Cisco to Hartley in the midst of all this?

But he thanked Dr. McGee for talking to him and went to meet Joe for lunch. 

Lunch wasn't as stilted as Cisco had been afraid it would be. Joe was his best friend's dad and since Cisco couldn't figure out how to bring said friend back home, well... it was nice of Joe not to blame Cisco for that. After lunch they headed to the Rathaway residence and Cisco found himself regretting that he didn't have the sort of relationship with Hartley where he could just hug the guy.

The last time Cisco had seen him, Hartley had looked awful. Pale and coughing and blood on his face. He was still pale and his voice was rough, but he looked a lot better. New clothes probably, considering all his stuff was still in his apartment and smelled of smoke. 

Osgood Rathaway was at work, but Rachel Rathaway was home, which made for an awkward moment when Hartley had to tell his mother that his apartment had been broken into before the fire. He didn't mention the part about being knocked out. Probably for the best given how worried just the break in made her.

"You don't think the fire was related to the break in, do you?" She asked nervously.

"While we'll have to wait for the arson investigation to conclude, the fire started on a lower floor and given the way it spread, was most likely an electrical fire. I hear there's already talk about suing the electrician who updated one of the apartments recently," Joe told her. "It's most likely an unfortunate coincidence."

"Mother..." Hartley gave her a searching look. "Could you maybe... take Cisco to get something to drink?" He sent Cisco an apologetic look, but it was fine. Whatever he told Joe, he could just Cisco later. Or have Joe fill him in if necessary.

"I am really thirsty. I don't suppose you have any iced tea?" he asked innocently.

"Of course. Please, come with me." She led him off to the kitchen where there was, indeed, a pitcher of iced tea. Way too sweet, though. It brought to mind a joke Cisco had heard from Armando after he moved into the southern states about sweet tea being for people who liked some sugar in their tea and _sweet tea_ \- said with the most over the top faux-southern accent Armando could manage - that was for people who liked some tea with their sugar. Cisco was pretty sure this tea fell into the latter category. Or at least bordered it heavily.

"There's something he's not telling me, isn't there?" Rachel asked quietly.

Cisco raised an eyebrow and wondered if it'd be rude to swap his drink for water. "If there is, I'm really not the one you should be asking."

"I know. I just... I suppose I'm afraid that the reason he isn't telling me isn't because he doesn't want me to worry but because... history has proven to him that he can't trust me." She shook her head. "If confides in you... please be there for him."

"I will," Cisco said. "I promise."

* * *

It's unfortunate that Hartley doesn't remember much about the intruder in his apartment. 

He let himself into the apartment, locked the door, turned around... and was immediately thwacked in the head. What's most interesting is that Hartley didn't hear the intruder at all. Not even when he was inside the apartment itself. So while he remembers the brief outline of a man with dark hair and a mask over the lower half of his face... that's it. 

"I should have been able to hear him by the time I was getting out of the elevator. But while I could hear Doreen watching her old sitcom reruns and all my other neighbors - the ones not out of town on vacation anyway - my apartment was silent. Except for the white noise generator I always leave running, and I always listen for that because it gives me something to focus on for bad days." Hartley gave Joe an unsettled look. "It didn't occur to me last night and maybe that's because I was in shock? I don't know... but. I should have been able to hear them coming a mile away and I didn't."

"That suggests your attacker was either a meta themselves with some ability to dampen or otherwise hide their own sound... or they had tech specially meant to do so." Joe clearly didn't like either option any more than Hartley did. "How well known is it that you're a meta?"

Hartley shrugged. "I don't make a secret of it. Or what my powers are. I don't keep anything worth stealing in my apartment. At least, nothing worth going up five flights of stairs for when there are easier targets on the ground floor. Unless they were after something work related on my laptop... shit. I don't know if they took my work laptop or not. It was in my messenger bag when I was knocked out, but I wasn't wearing it when Cisco woke me up. They must've taken it." Hartley ran a hand through his hair. "Dammit. I need to let Dr. McGee know." He'd have to report a data breach and that meant he'd have to go into work this week anyway because, without his laptop, the report would have to be made in person to... he didn't even know who, the breach reporting system was nearly fully automated.

No use freaking out about it now, though.

Hartley went over the events a few more times, trying not to get frustrated when Joe asked the same questions in different ways. The questions weren't meant to cast doubt on what Hartley'd already said but to try and jar loose as many details from Hartley's recollections as possible. But it was still annoying and frustrating and Hartley was relieved when he finally was able to sign off on his statement.

After Joe leaves, Hartley finds his mother and Cisco still in the kitchen drinking the awful, overly sweet tea his mother loves so much. Her southern roots showing through, she'd always say when Hartley or Osgood would complain to her about the drink. Hartley is definitely a northern city boy because he just can't stand it. And judging by how full Cisco's glass is, odds are Cisco isn't too fond of it either but is too polite to say anything. 

"The Detective headed back to the station," Hartley said, accepting - if a bit stiffly - a hug from his mother. Sometimes he worried he'd never be able to get used to receiving affection from his parents again. Even now the gestures still startled and bewildered him a little. But he wouldn't ever take them for granted, either.

"I'll give you two some space, then. Thank you for the conversation, Cisco," Rachel said with a smile, excusing herself from the room.

Hartley slumped into the chair his mother vacated and shoved the nearly empty glass of tea out of his way. "I don't suppose you saw my messenger bag on me when you were rescuing me last night?"

Cisco shook his head. "No messenger bag, sorry."

"Shit. It really must've been stolen then. I won't know for sure until I can actually get back into my apartment, but... my work laptop was probably stolen. So, if nothing else, I'm pretty sure the break in is related to what's happening at work." Hartley sighed and folded his arms over the table top and laid his face down against his forearms while considering the pros and cons of having yet another cough drop. The pros won and he sat up enough to pull a drop from his pocket to unwrap.

"So how are things going at STAR Labs?" Hartley asked. "Iris still constantly looking over your shoulder at your research?" 

Cisco shook his head. "I convinced her to take a short vacation to visit a friend of ours on Earth-38. She's a reporter like Iris and hopefully some journalist solidarity will help Iris find herself again. I love having her run comms for Wally, and for me, but I've been kind of concerned that she's basically putting her career and her life on hold and Barry wouldn't want her to give up what she loves to become the Team Flash comm-person twenty-four seven. Though she's way better at keeping Wally focused when he's running than I am." Cisco grimaced. "I think Wally's more interested in his powers than in super-heroing, which is valid... but he thinks he has to step into Barry's shoes which means that it's becoming something less fun for him and more of a chore and that's..."

"Not everyone with super powers who can be a hero should be a hero or should feel like they have to be a hero first and foremost?" Hartley filled in when Cisco faltered.

"Basically." Cisco shrugged, fiddling with his glass of liquid sugar.

"My mother's tea is awful. Want something that isn't basically flavored sugar to drink?" Hartley's throat felt better with the lozenge to suck on but a glass of water wouldn't go amiss at the moment.

"Yes, definitely, thank you." Cisco shoved his own glass away from himself with an air of relief that made Hartley laugh. And then cough a little, but mostly laugh.

"So, correct me if I'm wrong of course," Hartley said, fetching two new glasses and heading the fridge's water dispenser, "but it sounds like Iris has been trying so hard to connect to the part of Barry that was the hero - the part that led him to getting trapped in the speed force in the first place - that she's thrown herself into Team Flash work at what may end up being the expense of her own wants and dreams. Wally is trying so hard to do his missing brother proud that he's not seeing himself as a person outside of what connects him to Barry either. And you're so tied up in bringing your friend home that you've been neglecting your own self care too. Don't deny that last part, Cisco. You look awful and it's clearly not just because you breached into a burning building last night."

"You're annoying when you're right," Cisco muttered petulantly, though at least he seemed to be acknowledging he was making the same sort of mistakes that Iris and Wally were.

"Look." Hartley set down the two glasses of water and settled back in his chair. "Barry's gone. Caitlin's gone too, apparently, and I wish you'd told me that sooner. Their absences are going to massively shift the team dynamic you've got going on and trying to fill the gaps won't bring back that old dynamic. Even when they come back home, things have changed and... well, they'll change again but they won't change back. You need to find a new team dynamic that works with the resources you've got now. Maybe that means reaching out to people for more than just scientific consults. Like... I'd run comms for you, Cisco. And, unlike Iris, I have experience with computer hacking so I won't have to learn a whole new skill in order to access building plans, closed camera systems, or whatever else you'd need on the fly. That'd also open Iris up to do more investigative work both for her actual job and for Team Flash, which I would imagine overlap a great deal anyway. She's good at the investigative work already and that's more in line with what Barry did outside of running really fast. I think I'd need to actually meet Wally to give you any advice on him and it still leaves the team short someone who can act as physician when someone's hurt, but..."

Cisco nodded, looking grateful. "I'd really appreciate that help, Hartley. But you've got your own job and... being part of Team Flash can be a full time job itself some days. Like... having jobs outside of STAR Labs only works for Iris and Joe and... and Barry because they overlap so much. But you have to be at Mercury for your nine-to-five and there's a forty-hour work week right there... There's just so much of a time commitment that I just... I don't feel comfortable asking more of people than what they're already giving."

"The perks of being a whistle blower who just kicked off an investigation and company wide audit is that my sudden and stunning lack of popularity with my peers means Dr. McGee would probably happily assign me to some joint project with STAR Labs that would require me to work out of STAR Labs for as long as you need me." Hartley's tone was flippant, but... he wasn't the most friendly or socially open employee at Mercury Labs to begin with. Even if rationally everyone knew he'd done the right thing coming forward with what he'd found... the three people who'd been fired were more popular than he'd ever been. And now there was a criminal investigation, a civil investigation, and a budgetary audit happening all at once because of his actions. So... he was getting a lot of dirty looks lately. 

Having his laptop stolen would only make it worse, Hartley had no doubt.

"Do you really think she'd go for that?"

Hartley shrugged. "I couldn't hear the intruder in my apartment last night."

Cisco stared at him. "What? What do you mean... you hear everything."

"I know. But I couldn't hear him."

"Meta or tech," Cisco muttered, eyes loosing focus as he got lost in thought. "I need to vibe your apartment, see what happened there last night."

"Once the building is confirmed to be structurally sound enough to let people back inside, I'm sure Detective West'll want to take you along to check out my apartment. I'm not looking forward to verifying what's been disturbed or taken and I'm really not looking forward to having a CSI tech who isn't Barry poking around my things."

"Julian's not so bad and he should be back in town tomorrow," Cisco said absently. "He went back to London to visit family... I don't think you've actually met him yet?"

"Nope. From what you and Caitlin said, though, he's kind of like me except British and not gay?" Hartley grinned impishly. "Caitlin said he was hot. I look forward to confirming this for myself."

Cisco grimaced. "I just remembered. Barry and I swore to never let the two of you meet."

Hartley laughed (and coughed and fished out yet another lozenge). "Sounds fun."

* * *

Tina would've preferred that Hartley take the rest of the week off like she'd told him to, but the revelation that his work laptop had, most likely, been stolen before the fire meant that he needed to report the data breach in person. The downside to having the laptop stolen as opposed to a hacked email. They were able to disable the laptop's access to Hartley's login which would automatically lock the only user access on the laptop. It wouldn't stop any data on the laptop itself from being accessed by a determined hacker, but it should prevent the laptop from being used to access Mercury Labs' private VPN or various servers. Hartley'd have to be issued a new laptop which wouldn't arrive until the following week and then he'd still wind up losing at least half a day of work imaging the laptop with a backup of his data from the stolen one.

If they were lucky, the IT department would be able to track down the missing laptop once it came back online somewhere, but Tina wasn't about to hold her breath. 

Still, Tina took care of as much of it as she could for Hartley, given he was still exhausted and coughing from the smoke inhalation two days after the apartment fire.

That was when Hartley brought up the idea of him maybe getting out of the public eye, as it were, at work. Namely, by spending time on some joint project with STAR Labs. Surely there was some pretext they could come up with that would let him help lighten the load on Team Flash - not that he outright said it was for Team Flash, but Tina was good at reading through the lines and they both enjoyed being talking over and around the subject, if the light in Hartley's eyes was any indication - but also would put Hartley somewhere a little safer - otherwise known as working next to Vibe all day. (If Cisco Ramon didn't think Tina knew he was Vibe then she looked forward to the look on his face when she sprung that one on him, much like when she'd sprung on him and the others that she knew quite well who the Flash really was. She'd treasure the memory of the looks on their faces for quite some time indeed.)

"It's a good plan," she allowed, mentally reviewing projects at Mercury Labs and projects she knew about from STAR, trying to consider what the best options would be. Something that amounted to busy work, giving Hartley an intellectual challenge that wouldn't necessarily wind up interfering with time spent on Team Flash business. She knew Hartley, like herself, had already done some consulting on Cisco's efforts to retrieve Barry Allen from his current place of captivity and perhaps she could capitalize on that somehow... "I'll have to contact Mr. Ramon and put together something official on Monday. How are you holding up, though? I did try to keep it quiet that you were the one who came forward, but..." Tina suspected her secretary's penchant for gossip had let something slip and it snowballed across the building.

"Thank you, Dr. McGee," Hartley said, looking very relieved. "This whole thing has turned into such a mess." He gave a wry laugh. "You think I'd be used to good deeds blowing up in my face at this point."

"I'm lucky to have you here at Mercury Labs," Tina countered, giving him a fond look. Hartley looked like he might object for a moment before ducking his head and staying silent. 

She gets it. Working for Harrison left Hartley scars and only time would tell how much they'd heal. 

"I'd better not lose you back to STAR Labs permanently," Tina added teasingly. "Bad enough Caitlin went back."

"She's not there right now, which is part of Cisco's problem. He's overworked and too often alone." Hartley shrugged when Tina raised an eyebrow at him. "You saw him, what, yesterday... right?"

Tina nodded.

"So did I. And he looks about as exhausted as I feel."

Cisco had looked like he hadn't slept enough the night before, but Tina had attributed it to the fire. Now she wasn't so sure. Hartley did know the other man better than she did, after all.

"How's the investigation looking?" Hartley asked, neatly shifting the subject.

For now, Tina let him. At STAR Labs, those kids were doing so much for the city. As one of the few to know... she felt like she needed to do more to help. There had to be more she could do to lend them Hartley, especially when that was as much for his safety as it was for helping lessen Cisco's stress levels...

* * *

Cisco met Julian at the airport baggage claim.

"Welcome back to Central City," Cisco chirped brightly. "Land of the weird."

Julian laughed. "Glad to be back. You know, I actually missed this place while I was gone? Anything changed?"

"Finally got Iris to go visit Kara," Cisco said. "You want me to carry anything? I'm volunteering."

"No, I've got it." Julian snagged a suitcase off the baggage carousel. "This is my only suitcase. A little heavier than when I left, admittedly. It was carry on then. Mum and Dad had me take some of my old stuff with me. Which is fair enough, I suppose."

"I hate to say this, but I kind of need you to be back at work tomorrow." Cisco saw Julian's eyebrow go up and he tried not to cringe. This was important and... he had to step up and be team leader. Someone had to and Cisco was the only one left. The only OG member of Team Flash still on the team. Hartley was right. The team dynamic had to change. And it would never change back.

He could do this. If he was going to help Hartley, he had to do this.

"There was a fire at an apartment complex two nights ago. Right after Hartley Rathaway's apartment was broken into and Hartley was knocked out and left for dead, his laptop most likely stolen. We won't know for sure about the laptop until the arson investigation finishes and Joe can go with Hartley to confirm the theft and start investigating. Hartley's fine, for the most part. Stitches on his forehead and he's still coughing from the smoke damage to his lungs. But the thing is... Hartley is a meta. Enhanced hearing. But he never heard his attacker."

"Meaning his attacker might be a meta too," Julian surmised.

"That's right. The building has already been confirmed to be structurally sound and the arson investigation will be clearing most of the building for people to return for their things tomorrow morning. It looks like it was an electrical fire unrelated to the break in at Hartley's apartment. Started on a different floor entirely. But I'm going to see if I can confirm that and maybe see what Hartley's attacker looked like."

"And you want to make sure I'm the CSI on the case, so no one outside the loop sees you do your thing," Julian guessed, following Cisco out of the building towards the parking lot where he'd left a STAR Labs van parked. 

"Yeah."

"I remember you mentioning Rathaway before," Julian observed. "Used to work at STAR Labs, right? You said I reminded you of him."

"Yeah. He and I made each other's lives hell for a while, but an evil speedster made us bury the hatchet." Cisco snickered when Julian snorted in amusement.

"That does sound like a familiar story."

"You'll either grate on each other's nerves something awful or get along... way too well," Cisco guessed, barely avoiding the words 'like a house on fire'. After the other day... it was too soon.

"So you said his work laptop was likely stolen?" Julian asked, already curious about the mystery despite himself.

"Yeah. Hartley said it was in his messenger bag when he got home from work and he was still wearing the bag when he got knocked out after closing the door. But it wasn't there when I breached into his apartment to get him out of there during the fire. At least... it wasn't on him. I wasn't exactly looking around for it."

"I'll give the Captain a call once I get settled and go into work tomorrow."

They were quiet the rest of the way to the van, but after putting his suitcase and backpack in the back, Julian's expression turned a bit fixed. "Have you heard anything from Caitlin?"

"She uh... she texted the other day." The anniversary of Dante's death. "She said she's doing okay and not to go looking for her. Vibed just enough to get the impression she's really is okay." But not her location. He was trying to walk the narrow line between watching her back and respecting her privacy. So he'd only used his powers to get an impression, not a full on vision. He still worried he'd gone too far.

If he ever saw her... When he saw her again, he'd have to apologize. 

"Good. I'm glad she's... I'm glad she's okay." Julian sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Do you think she'll forgive me?"

It took Cisco a moment for his mind to connect the question to Julian removing the power dampener... saving Caitlin's life, but disregarding Caitlin's stated wishes and giving Killer Frost the final push to fully manifest in the process.

"Yeah, I think she will." He wonders if Julian will try to pursue a romantic relationship with Caitlin again. But something tells Cisco that ship had sailed. And if he's being honest, he doesn't think Caitlin had ever really been interested in Julian that way in the first place.

"So how'd your date with Cynthia go?" Julian asked, changing the subject.

Cisco grimaced. "Well... you know I postponed the date at first."

"I thought she was okay with that." Julian sounded startled.

"She was. But when we tried to have our date... she got called away by work. So we rescheduled, tried again. I got called away to spend several hours chasing after Shawna Baez with Wally. I hate teleporters," he muttered the last part under his breath, but Julian clearly heard, given the snort of amusement that reached Cisco's ears. "Anyway, we rescheduled again. Then we finally had our date for real and... we had nothing to talk about. We just kind of... fizzled." Cisco sighed regretfully. "Apparently finding each other hot and having the same powers isn't the greatest basis for a relationship."

"Sorry to hear that," Julian patted him on the arm. "Better luck next time, mate. For both of us."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much for three chapters. Four... maybe five.

The smoky smell that permeates the building makes Hartley very glad he got the new inhaler. Because he winds up needing it once gets to his apartment, having to go out on the balcony to use it. He had two chairs out there and he sat with Cisco while Joe and Julian Albert - PhD and very pretty indeed, he could understand why Caitlin had wished she'd liked him back - go over his apartment with a fine tooth comb.

The messenger bag was gone, just like Hartley'd thought. The work laptop nowhere to be found.

It's a shame; Hartley'd liked that messenger bag.

"Feeling better?" Cisco asked, clearly worried.

Hartley nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine. I shouldn't have come back so soon. Should've just left it all up to you. I guess I just... needed to see this place for myself. Rather wish I couldn't smell it, though." He sighed, "hopefully I can wash the smell out of my clothes, or I'll have to replace all of it. Can't wear clothes that set off my asthma." He'd have to find out if running his clothes through the wash would be enough or if he'd have to dry clean it all in an attempt to salvage at least some of it. He didn't even want to think about his furniture. Though maybe a professional cleaning service could help with the couch and chairs? How much did something like that cost, anyway? At what point did it become cheaper to just buy something new...

At least his mattress had been awful, so Hartley wasn't too concerned about replacing that particular item.

"If you want help cleaning it all up," Cisco tapped one of his feet against Hartley's, "I'm free."

Says the guy who looks like he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Thank you," Hartley said. "My parents said I can stay with them as long as I need, but it so weird being there again. Haven't figured out if it's a good weird or bad weird yet."

"Your mom asked me to look out for you," Cisco blurted out.

Hartley straightened up a bit in his chair, startled, before a pleased smiled made it's way onto his face. A warm feeling bubbled in his chest. "Having mother concerned about my well-being? That's definitely a good weird. But... maybe you could help me find a new apartment. I don't want to stay here, but I think if I stay with my parents too long it'll definitely become a bad weird."

"Sure, I can help with that," Cisco said with a relieved grin.

Hartley smiled back. It'd get Cisco out of the office and stop him from hyper-focusing on the situation with Barry so much that he overworked himself into a collapse, while getting Hartley a second opinion on the apartments he was most interested in. Win-win.

The balcony door opened and the detective walked out to join them. "Think you can come back inside for a little bit?" West asked Hartley while Cisco stretched and stood back up.

"For a little while, yeah. But then I really have to get out of here so I don't cough up my lungs." Hartley let Cisco give him a hand up.

"Think if I open a breach to STAR Labs anyone'll notice that two fewer people leave the apartment than came in?" Cisco asked.

There was that warm, bubbly feeling again. "I'd really appreciate that, Cisco," Hartley said, fondness in his voice. "Thanks."

* * *

While Hartley looks around with Julian to see if anything else was moved or otherwise stolen aside from the messenger bag and laptop, Cisco headed to the front door with Joe. Time for his own powers to come back into play.

Cisco touched the handle, closed his eyes and...

_Hartley walked into the apartment, dropping his keys, wallet, and phone on the little table he kept there, the door swinging shut behind him. He turned to lock the door, not noticing that he wasn't alone._

_It was wrong. So wrong. Hartley should have heard him... but there was nothing to hear. Not even for Cisco to hear in the vision._

_Cisco had heard the door shut, the sound of Hartley's keys, the noise Hartley's phone made for what was likely an email alert given what little attention Hartley'd given the sound. But the man who's been crouched by Hartley's desk stood up and walked over to Hartley, smacking him over the head with what looked like a paperweight... nothing. No sound as he used the desk chair for leverage to stand up and the chair smacked into the desk. No noise from his footsteps as he advanced on Hartley, who was locking the front door. And there wasn't any visible indication of anything meant to dampen the sound._

_Worse was that there wasn't a single sound from the impact of the paperweight hitting Hartley's face._ _He felt awful, watching Hartley drop like a stone. Even knowing Hartley was okay now, a little worse for wear but recovering fine. A blow to the head like that could've easily been fatal. He wanted the vision to end already so he could look over and see Hartley as he was now, with a few stitches on his forehead, but alive and well._

_But Cisco made himself watch until the end as the intruder grabbed the messenger bag off of Hartley roughly, uncaring of the way the strap scraped across Hartley's face, getting blood on the fabric. He checked the bag's contents and then put the bag over his own shoulder, getting a smear of blood on his clothes. He took off the mask he was wearing then, shoving it into Hartley's messenger bag. Then he went out an open window in the back of the room..._

Cisco blinked as the vision faded. "Julian, check the back window for a broken lock. That'll be how the intruder got in. He also spent some time at Hartley's desk and touched his chair."

"The lock's definitely broken," Julian called back. "I'll check for prints."

"Did you see the guy's face?" Joe asked.

"Yeah. He... nothing he did made any sound. Even when he hit Hartley. Nothing. I didn't see any obvious tech on him; he's got to be a meta." There'd been something eerie about the silence and Cisco restrained the urge to shudder. "He was tall... but not quite six-foot. White guy, kind of tan, with dark hair, brown eyes... clean shaven. He took off his mask before leaving."

Hartley started coughing hard again and Cisco started towards him, but Hartley shook his head and went back out on to the balcony on his own.

Cisco felt antsy and he wanted to follow along anyway, but he still had a few things left to do. "I'd recognize him if I saw him again."

Joe nodded. "You'll have to swing by the station after lunch, take a look at some mug shots."

"Got some prints off the window, desk, and chair, though we'll need Hartley's prints for exclusion purposes," Julian said, rejoining Cisco and Joe.

The balcony door reopened and Hartley poked his head back into the apartment to say, "I'll go by the station with Cisco this afternoon then."

"Thanks," Julian replied.

"So aside from my fingerprints," Hartley said, holding up his hands and waving his fingers, "anything else I can bring you? Coffee, tea... my phone number?"

Julian blushed and let out a startled laugh.

Cisco shifted uncomfortably, feeling suddenly too warm and his own chest went a little tight. Maybe the smell of the smoke was starting to get to him too.

"Just your fingerprints," Julian replied, shaking his head in amusement.

"Your loss," Hartley teased, shutting the doors again.

Swallowing hard, Cisco focused back on the other thing he was here for. "Where did the fire start? It'd be better if I try to vibe what happened at the source."

"It's down on the third floor." Joe turned to Julian, "anything else you need to check here?"

"No. Hartley didn't see anything else stolen and he said all he's taking with him when he leaves with Cisco is his wallet, keys, and cell phone. I think he needs the place to air out some more before he figures out what's salvageable." Julian led the way out of the room while Cisco waved at Hartley before following after the detective and CSI.

The elevators weren't working yet, so they had to go down two flights of stairs. It gave Cisco all too much time to contemplate the idea that he didn't like Hartley flirting with Julian. At all.

* * *

Wally bounced on the balls of his feet, feeling itchy energy in his legs. He wanted to go running. He always wanted to go running these days.

Sometimes he wondered how Barry could stand to stay still, to spend his days at work going at slow, boring, ordinary speeds. But then... Wally had always loved speed for the thrill of it, the rush of being the fastest.

Lately though... lately Wally felt, even when he was running, like he was always standing still. Whether he was chasing a teleporter or creating a whirlwind to suck the oxygen out of a fire...

At the moment, however, he was literally standing still, waiting for his girlfriend to arrive. She was running late. A bad speedster habit that Wally was trying - and failing - not to fall into.

Five minutes late, almost to the exact second, a breach opened briefly enough for Jesse to run through. She was getting better at that; running fast enough to breach between the universes. Wally could go faster than her in a straight up race, but he couldn't quite wrap his brain around the mindset needed to run between the folds of the multi-verse. When it was his turn to visit, he'd bring one of Cisco's inter-dimensional breach devices with him. 

Wally wished Barry was there to work on it with him. Jesse tried, but she wasn't great at explaining things in ways Wally understood easily. She talked too much like her dad, sometimes.

"Ugh, I'm so sorry I'm late," Jesse buzzed over to brush a kiss against Wally's mouth. "Dad wanted me to run extra phasing drills today; I think he was deliberately trying to make me late."

Wally snickered. "That sounds like Harry."

"Well I'm ready for dinner. Absolutely starving for pizza, I hope you don't mind?" Jesse smiled, that absolutely gorgeous, slightly lopsided grin that never failed to make Wally feel all floaty and pleased.

"Pizza sounds..." he was cut off by the sound of a meta alert. "Like you may have to order without me," Wally sighed. "Catch up with you later."

"Yeah, I gotta have at least a couple of slices before I'm good to help if it turns out you guy's need an extra speedster. I'll order your favs," she promised, before they both disappeared in opposite directions.

Wally suited up and joined Cisco in the cortex where the other man was hastily pulling on his boots. "Hartley set off his remote alert on his phone," Cisco said, standing up and opening a breach. "Ready to go?"

Wally nodded and then was immediately through the breach. He was suddenly in a very nice hallway of house that had to be at least three times the size of his dad's place. And it wasn't like his dad's house was small.

He wasn't quite sure which way to go, but Cisco seemed to so he followed along while Cisco - no, Vibe, Wally needed to think in code names while on the job. Wouldn't do to accidentally give away anyone's secret identity.

Cisco was reaching for a door handle, right as an older man and woman came out of a room at the far end of the hallway.

"Hartley, what's... what are you two doing here?" demanded the man while the woman turned pale and tried to drag her husband back a step.

What were the elder Rathaway's names again? 

That was when the door Cisco had been reaching for exploded outward. Silently.

Wally reacted a hair too slow, getting splinters all over himself and Cisco, but he still managed to pull Cisco out of the way before the guy Hartley'd apparently tossed through his doorway - oh, yeah, Hartley was the Pied Piper, wasn't he? Wally forgot that most of the time... - knocked him to the floor.

The guy on the ground went for a gun and Wally went for it too, speeding away with the weapon and ditching it safely out of the way before zipping back in time to see Cisco and Hart... Vibe and Hartley tag teaming the attacker in order to knock him out and slap some meta suppressant cuffs on the guy.

A sort of... ringing in the air immediately stopped. And it was so weird because... Wally hadn't even noticed it was there until it was gone.

"I thought you only brought your wallet, keys, and phone from your apartment," Cisc - Vibe muttered to Hartley.

"Well I'm hardly going to tell a detective or a CSI that I'm also bringing the latest version of my Piper gloves, particularly considering Joe thinks I stopped with the mark 1 version of them," Hartley hissed back.

It wasn't gloves on Hartley's hands, though. It was silvery piping that curled up his wrists and twined around his fingers. Wally caught a brief glimpse of some kind of emitter against Hartley's palms before Hartley brushed his hands together and each one retracted until all Hartley appeared to be wearing on his arms were a set of fancy wrist cuffs.

"Mother, Father, are you two alright?" Hartley asked, hurrying down the hall to check on his parents.

Wally wondered what he'd tell them about what just happened - they'd seen him team up with Vibe, so just how much about Hartley's brief foray into first super villainy and then super heroism were they aware of - and then decided it wasn't his business.

"This is the same guy who broke into your apartment before the fire," C-Vibe confirmed, not bothering to speak louder when he knew Hartley could hear him just fine. It took Wally a moment to realize that was who Vibe was speaking to, though. "I'm going to drop him off at the police department. You should go have your date with Quick, Kid," Vibe smiled tiredly. "Want a breach back?"

"Nah. I feel like running." Wally flashed a grin of his own and then raced off, phasing out of the house through the front door. Maybe he should pick up some ice cream on the way back to STAR Labs...

* * *

He doesn't hear anything.

That's what causes Hartley to hit the panic button. He doesn't hear anything. There's a sudden blank spot downstairs where there should be noise. It's there and gone and back again, but Hartley's been a little on edge since visiting his apartment that morning. So he notices when there isn't sound where there should be.

Hartley hopes he's just over-reacting and Cisco'll show up and they'll laugh it off.

He slips the cuffs back onto his wrists, just in case. He'd been tinkering with them on and off for the last year and they only have two frequencies compared to the full glove's large range, but one of them is specifically for Time Wraiths and the other is for fights where he needs to get the hell out of there fast. His actual gloves are still in the fire safe he keeps in the closet of his bedroom in his apartment and Hartley figured Cisco wouldn't have been too judgmental if Hartley had taken them with him that morning. But he hadn't wanted to talk about the anxiety gnawing at the back of his mind after hearing Cisco describe his attacker.

That was a real person. An eerily silent person. Who might come back if he didn't get everything he wanted the first time.

So Hartley had grabbed his cuffs and slipped them on. Cisco hadn't even noticed the addition to Hartley's outfit earlier that day - distracted by the discovery that the electrical fire had indeed been started by another meta, another face for him to identify at the station - and simply went on to absently lend Hartley a charging cord for his phone while ordering them lunch from a sandwich place near STAR Labs that delivered.

Hartley didn't take off his cuffs for the rest of the day... until it was time to shower off the lingering smokey scent from his apartment - the cuffs not exactly water proof yet - and didn't think to put them back on afterwards when he went for an early dinner with his parents. It'd been a long day and he wanted to turn in early. Except... there was that nothingness downstairs as he went to close his eyes.

So he hit the panic button, retrieved the cuffs, and listened to the silence as it moved through his parents' house.

When the silence opened the door to the room that shared the bathroom with Hartley's - and he couldn't hear the door open or the swish of the carpet, just the dead space slowly, inexorably headed towards him - Hartley decided it was time to be proactive. He rushed through the bathroom and out into the other room. There was a moment where Hartley registered the sound of a breach outside in the hallway and the realization that the silence really did come from a person and then Hartley was raising his hands and splaying his fingers.

Vibrations knocked the man through the door.

His attacker didn't feel real. He didn't have a heartbeat or make noise as he breathed. There were no sounds coming from his body at all - the hardest part of his hearing had been overcoming the sense of revulsion he'd initially felt at being able to hear all the gurgling noises a body made all the time - and it was like looking at a dead body that just... wouldn't stop.

Kid Flash took the man's gun, but that didn't stop his attacker from moving on to physical attacks. Hartley felt flat-footed, like the lack of sound from the other man somehow left him swimming through molasses, some part of him certain this couldn't be real. No living person should be so quiet.

Thank god for Vibe. He covered Hartley's weak points and then flipped the attacker - who had pulled out a knife from somewhere - hard into a wall. The drywall cracked and the guy slumped to the ground. 

Hartley thought he ought to feel bad about the damage to his parents house, but he felt breathless and dazed and a little chilled. He probably needed to use his inhaler before this turned into an asthma attack. But his fight or flight mode is still too heavily weighted towards fight for him to be able to head into the bedroom to retrieve the medication. It's not until the dampener handcuffs go onto the meta and suddenly Hartley can hear the attacker's lungs and heart and process that this was all very real.

And also his parents just watched him fight a meta with two super heroes and Hartley doesn't quite know what to do with that even as he deactivates his wrist cuffs and quietly banters with Cisco before checking to be sure his parents are okay.

They're fine. Freaked out, but unharmed.

Cisco takes away the attacker and then returns moments later with Detective West and an officer Hartley doesn't recognize. They retrieve the gun for evidence and talk to Hartley and his parents to get their statements. Which is of course when Hartley's lungs finally decided it's time for an asthma attack because he never did grab his inhaler. He tries to talk his parents out of an emergency room visit.

Given his difficulty getting enough breath to talk even with the albuterol working its magic, it's rather unsurprising that he fails.

* * *

Cisco was pissed off the first time he called Caitlin's phone after she left and he was directed straight to voicemail. He didn't leave a message, just sent her 'you blocked my calls???' via text.

She'd sent back a rambling text about needing space and that meant she needed him to wait for her to call him first, not the other way around. But if he needed to leave her a voice message or a text, that was cool. Though the impression he got was that she'd prefer he used that contact sparingly.

His responding text that Barry had been forced to return to the speed force prison had, perhaps, been unnecessarily terse.

While Cisco was all for respecting the changes she felt she needed to her boundaries, he'd deserved to learn what those changed boundaries were before he'd smacked right into them. Especially since Caitlin knew that texting felt impersonal to Cisco. He had a thing about needing to hear other people's voices and had difficulty parsing tone from text-only conversations.

So Cisco had very little contact with Caitlin over the last month. 

But tonight Cisco takes advantage of being allowed to leave voicemails. He calls Caitlin, feels his eyes get all watery at the sound of her voice on the greeting message, and then stretches out on the bed as he just... talks. "Hey Caitlin. Sorry to call at, like, one o'clock, but you're blocking my calls anyway so I'm sure this didn't disturb you." Okay, so he's still feeling a little passive aggressively miffed over how he found out she wasn't ready for phone calls. "So, um... someone is trying to kill Hartley. Well, multiple someones. I've had to save his life, like, twice in the last week. He discovered shady stuff happening at Mercury Labs, because of course he did, and so Dr. McGee is coming up with a pretext for sending him over to STAR Labs for his safety. It'll be on a joint project that's really just the 'rescue Barry from the Speed Force' thing I've been working on. Hartley's consulted a little on it, so it'll be nice to have a second brain working on it full time, but... yeah, it's been kind of crazy. And he's in the hospital right now because fighting off an attacker tonight triggered an asthma attack because his lungs were already weakened from smoke damage from his apartment complex being set on fire. And I... I think I kind of got jealous when Hartley was hitting on Julian earlier today. So I might have a teeny tiny little crush on Hartley." He'd also freaked out a little when Hartley'd asthma attack started, though not so much that he didn't automatically open a breach to the nearest emergency room when Rachel announced she was taking Hartley to the hospital.

She'd thanked him. Cisco's fairly certain she recognized him too; so much for secret identities.

"Anyway... I just needed to vent and I thought maybe you'd like an update on what's going on back home? And I miss you."

Cisco ended the call and tossed his phone back onto the night stand. Then he got out of bed to make tea. And grab his tablet so he could finish reading the ridiculous gay vampire erotica that he most definitely was never admitting to purchasing, even if it had only been about a dollar. (Sometimes a guy just wanted unrealistic biting porn, okay?)

* * *

It's after Jesse goes to sleep that Wally rolls out of bed. He likes cuddling with her; it's usually easier for him to sleep with her there for that very reason. But tonight all Wally can think of is that he hadn't really been all that useful in the fight at the Rathaway residence.

He feels like he should be doing more. Barry would've been able to end that fight all on his own, but instead of Wally having it handled it was Cisco who'd taken care of things. It had felt that way with the fire too. Cisco saved the lives and Wally stopped the fire. Which had definitely been the right call. He wasn't envious of Cisco getting to be the hero. But Cisco was the one who'd ultimately caught Peek-a-Boo too. Wally hadn't known what to do and kept trying the same thing over and over again. Cisco was the one who came up with the strategy that finally worked.

Wally had thought that he'd be stepping into Barry's shoes; they were both speedsters after all. And Barry had been able to handle the heroing all on his own since pretty much day one. And while Jesse had the benefit of Barry's mentorship, she was largely on her own over on Earth-2 and thriving. But Wally... felt like he was standing still. Instead of him doing Barry proud, it was Cisco who was stepping into Barry's shoes. And Wally was starting to wonder if becoming Kid Flash had been the right choice for him. He admired people who wanted to save lives and help others, but that didn't automatically mean Wally was cut out to be a hero. Or at least, not the same kind of hero that Barry and Jesse and Cisco were.

And if Wally didn't really fit in the Team Flash mold... then what did that even mean for him? 

Glancing back at Jesse, asleep on the bed, Wally slipped out of the room and then took off on a run. Just around the block a few dozen times, to work off the anxious energy his worries and uncertainty brought him.

Just to block out the quiet thoughts in the back of his head that said he needed more space than Central City could give him. 

* * *

Tina pressed the doorbell and waited patiently to be let in. The man who greets her at the door is not Hartley, it's Osgood Rathaway, whom she knows more by reputation than through business. Rathaway Industries attempted to do business with Mercury Labs about a year after the very public disowning of their son. Suffice it to say that she'd done the polite businesswoman version of telling him to get stuffed. 

Osgood remembered. It was written all over the very stiff expression that showed up on his face. So Tina smiled pleasantly. "Mr. Rathaway, I'm Dr. Tina McGee."

"My son's employer," Osgood filled in.

"That's right. I heard about the attack last night and hoped to see how he's doing."

Osgood took a deep breath and then nodded, standing aside. "Please, come in. I'll let Hartley know you're here."

So she comes inside the house and takes a seat in a formal parlor room. There's a gorgeous baby grand piano that Tina's fingers itch to play, for all that it's been years since she last played. It's an older piano, probably a family heirloom. She probably shouldn't insult the poor thing by playing chopsticks on it. 

Hartley comes down the stairs with Cisco hovering around him. She can't say she's surprised the young man arrived before she did.

"Dr. McGee," Hartley smiled brightly. "Thank you for coming to see me."

"I'm glad to see you're doing okay," she greeted him, reaching over to shake first his hand and then Cisco's. "It's good to see you too, Cisco."

Cisco smiled tiredly. "Thanks Dr. McGee. I can, uh... is there any tea in the kitchen that isn't fifty percent sugar?"

Hartley rolled his eyes. "Not unless you make it yourself. You don't have to go, Cisco. I think Dr. McGee is here to discuss why I'm being targeted and I'd rather you sit in on that."

"I think you may have stumbled across more than just embezzlement and insider trading," Tina said bluntly. "I brought copies of the printouts you brought me. After the theft of your laptop, I compared what you brought me to our current electronic copies of the same data. Everything is the same as far as the proof of the embezzlers and the insider trading went. But there were some differences in other parts of the data set." She held out the briefcase she'd brought with her, which Hartley took and popped open as he sat down on the piano bench. The briefcase went next to him and he popped it open, immediately picking up the first file to flip through it.

"Huh..." Hartley frowned thoughtfully. "You highlighted the differences?"

"And included the altered data. There's an NDA for Mr. Ramon at the bottom," she added. "I anticipated your presence and I'd appreciate your input, but... it is proprietary data for the Lab and some of it is highly sensitive."

"Anyone have a pen?" Cisco asked, settling in a chair and accepting the NDA when Hartley fished it out for him.

"There should be one in the table drawer," Hartley spoke up, still pouring over the files, frowning as he took in what McGee had found. "Father does crosswords and sudoku there on Saturdays. He's got a lot of pens in there."

"Thanks," Cisco said, retrieving a pen, testing it on his palm before turning back to the NDA. He read over the document carefully before signing, but it was a fairly boilerplate document. He would've signed similar documents doing consulting work for the various labs around the city. These days Cisco Ramon had a reputation for being the foremost expert on meta human powers and getting even a few hours of his time for consultation was highly in demand.

Once Cisco signed the NDA, Hartley handed over the files he'd already looked over.

"I don't get it," Hartley finally said. "None of the data altered was suspicious until after they altered it. All they had to do was keep their heads down and no one would have noticed."

"But they apparently thought that they couldn't take that chance," Tina replied. "They were fudging test data. But whether the original data was fake or the new data is fake or it's both fake..." She shook her head. "That's two projects I'm going to have to scrap and start over from scratch. The results are now invalid. But there must've been something else to this. Something they thought was on your laptop, but not part of what you'd presented to me. And they couldn't take the chance of you remembering whatever it was."

"So first they tried to stage my death via asphyxiation in the fire. And when that failed they tried something more direct," Hartley guessed.

Tina nodded, "my guess as well. Whatever it is, they must have thought it was pretty damning."

"But I don't have the first idea what it would've been." Hartley shook his head. "I looked through a lot of documents that I didn't present to you because I didn't think they were relevant. Great, someone wants to kill me over something I don't know... or don't know that I know."

Cisco reached over and squeezed Hartley's shoulder.

"You got the guy who broke in here behind bars, but there's still a meta who can cause electrical fires out there and as long as we don't know who is behind this then we don't know who else they may have hired." He took a shaky breath. "It's not safe for my parents if I stay here, is it?" He looked over at Cisco, a miserable expression on his face.

"Honestly?" Cisco sounded pretty miserable himself. "Probably not without someone here to protect all three of you."

Not exactly the news Tina had been hoping these files would uncover.

* * *

"Mother..." Hartley hugged her again, "I'll be fine. Detective West already has a safe house lined up for me. It probably won't take long to find out who's after me and I'll be back in your guest room looking for a new apartment before you know it."

"I know, I'm just worried," Rachel murmured, holding him tightly. When she finally let go, she added fretfully, "I can make you a pitcher of tea to go if you like."

"I'm sure that's not necessary, dear," Osgood cut in on Hartley's behalf. "Wherever Hartley's going, I've no doubt they're already well stocked with food and drink. Hartley... take care of yourself." He hesitated a moment before giving Hartley a hug too.

Hartley swallowed hard and let himself just enjoy the moment for what it was. Regardless of the circumstances, he was getting hugs from his parents. That wasn't something he'd ever be able to take for granted.

He didn't have much to load into West's car, considering he still hadn't been able to check on the stuff in his apartment. The longer it took, the more likely the smell of the smoke would set in. So Hartley had reluctantly given his keys to his parents and asked them to check on his stuff for him. Make sure his electronics still worked, get his clothes and other launderable items cleaned, and at least get the place aired out enough that Hartley could pack it up himself later. He'd just have to trust they wouldn't go snooping and discover his condom stash in the night stand. That would be... awkward.

"So," Hartley asked as Joe put the car in gear, "where are we headed, anyway?"

"Dr. Wells' former residence." Joe caught sight of the expression on Hartley's face and added, "it's been massively renovated since the time you blew in the windows. Barry inherited it after... the singularity. He was going to sell it originally, but it was on the market for a year and only got two offers, both of which were ridiculously low-ball offers. Barry finally took the place off the market and redesigned the interior, and some of the exterior, to make it a safe house they could use if something happened to STAR Labs. I think Cisco's running the team's shared Emby server out of there too."

Hartley snorted in amusement, but he still felt tense at the idea of going back there. He hoped the remodeling inside was extensive indeed. Shattering the skylights and the window wall wasn't the first questionable decision Hartley'd ever made at that residence. He'd rather not spend the entire time he was there thinking about Harrison.

Though he'd brought the briefcase full of paperwork that Dr. McGee had given him. And on Monday Hartley'd be issued a new work laptop, which Cisco had promised to take him to Mercury Labs to retrieve. So at least some of his time could be put towards trying to retrace his steps to figure out what it was that had placed him in danger in the first place. And since Cisco had signed an NDA, he'd be able to help out if Hartley ran into road blocks.

It was too bad Cisco couldn't just vibe who'd hired the attackers, but West said the guy they'd caught had lawyered up real fast and refused to talk besides. No luck interrogating him about his employer.

West took a meandering route to Harrison's place - Hartley couldn't quite think of it as 'the safe house' just yet - and the exterior, when they arrived, wasn't all that different from what Hartley remembered. The landscaping was plain and the house's lines were sleek and modern. Hartley remembered coming here with Harrison and feeling impressed by the man's style. But to an older, more experienced Hartley the whole thing just looks... empty. Boring. 

He gets out of the car, grabs his stuff, and follows West inside. 

Once inside, though, it might as well be a completely different house. Oh, sure, the window wall is still there, but it's hidden behind a steel covering. Same with the skylight and the windows on the front of the house in the kitchen. The only light inside the building is artificial. The kitchen was completely redone. Oh, the top of the line appliances are still there, but someone painted the cabinets a bright red with yellow accents. The Flash's color scheme... Cisco's idea, no doubt. The walls are all a warm gray and there's no hint of the stark white furniture Hartley remembers. There's an over-sized blue couch and ottoman set, a black lazy-boy recliner, and and absolutely ridiculous television. It's just huge.

Cisco, Wally, and a woman Hartley assumes is Jesse Wells - he'd met Harry, but not his daughter - are already there on the couch with a bunch of take out boxes arrayed on the ottoman. 

"Hey, Hartley, Joe," Cisco greeted. "Come join us. We've got enough Chinese for everyone."

"My mother tried to send some iced tea with me," Hartley informed Cisco, taking a seat beside him on the couch while Joe took the recliner. He laughed as Cisco's nose wrinkled up cutely. "Father stopped her."

"Oh thank god," Cisco breathed out and that... that just made Hartley laugh harder as he, finally, relaxed.


	3. Chapter 3

The safe house is indeed the home of the Team Flash Emby Server. There's also a ridiculous number of Hallmark style romance movies on there. Cisco swears Caitlin's the one addicted to them, but he gets a very shifty look on his face when he casually tosses his missing friend under the bus.

Hartley suspects that even if the movies are all Caitlin's, Cisco watches them a lot too.

Eventually Joe heads back home, leaving Hartley behind with three super heroes. He's fairly certain that Jesse choosing _Love Comes Softly_ for their next movie to watch is behind the older man's decision to abandon them.

Hartley can't really blame him, though his own reservations against the movie have to do with how stereotypical and straight the plot is.

About halfway through the movie, Cisco takes pity on Hartley and takes him to the hallway that leads to the bedrooms and points him at a specific door - thankfully not the master bedroom's door, Hartley'd not like to revisit that room any time soon - and points out the other rooms in the hallway.

"Wally and Jesse have the master bedroom for the night since they're dating and neither have hang-ups about taking what used to be Dr. Wells' room. I had way too many vibes of past events in that room when we were doing the re-modal." Cisco grimaced and shook his head.

Hartley couldn't help it, he blushed. "Um... did you see... that is... uhm... did you see me... in there?" oh, god, he can't even say it outright.

Cisco also blushed brightly. "Nothing... revealing?" he squeaked. "Anyway, we did change the house foot print a little. Updated the bathrooms, added a third bedroom and turned the entire basement into a panic room, though the whole house is kind a panic room now since all the windows have that retractable metal reinforcement," Cisco said, changing the subject and most definitely not looking anywhere near Hartley's face. "Wally was showing that off to Jesse when you got here, so we left it on partial lock down. Full lock down and the front door wouldn't have opened. So instead of being a two-bedroom, two bath house, it's now a four bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath house. Three bedrooms upstairs, one downstairs. These two doors are to the old guest room, which was Wells' office and I hope you don't mind that I put you in there? We can swap, but I'd rather not since I don't really want to risk wake up vibing Dr. Wells cackling maniacally over his camera feeds of Barry's old apartment or whatever he did when he was bored before the accelerator exploded."

"That's fine with me," Hartley agreed. "I suppose this door is to the new third bedroom?" He pointed at the door in question.

"Yup. The bathroom that used to be accessible through the hallway is now a jack-and-jill style shared between your room and mine. Hope you don't mind sharing."

"Not at all." Hartley headed into what had been designated his room and dropped his backpack and briefcase on the bed. It was a good sized room with a full sized bed and a desk in one corner by a metal covered window. "So I take it all the walls are reinforced?"

"Yeah. We had the whole place taken back to studs for the outer walls and majorly reinforced, which was really cool to see in progress. Well, I say we but really it was all Barry. His guilt-complex fueled reconstruction work after the singularity came in handy since he now knows all the building codes and structural engineering. I don't know that he got permits from the city for any of that work, but the results are impressive and we can now electrify the walls during lock down to prevent speedsters from phasing through. I think. I mean... I was trying to get that finished before the big showdown with Savitar, but... it didn't pan out. Obviously." Cisco shrugged, "so it hasn't really been tested yet. Wally volunteered, but Joe shut that down. And no one is going to suggest Jesse try and risk incurring Harry's fatherly wrath."

Hartley snorted softly in amusement. "I'll bet."

"Do you want to check out the basement? That's where all the tech toys are hiding," Cisco added with a grin.

"Sure." Hartley followed him back out into the hallway, towards what Hartley had thought was a hall closet. It wasn't a closet, after all, though; it opened to a staircase leading down into the dark. 

Cisco flipped a light switch, illuminating the stairwell. "Much as I enjoy the comfy living room upstairs for movie nights, down here is my favorite part of the house. The computers here pretty much mirror my setup in STAR Labs cortex."

"Whose idea was the Flash themed kitchen?" Hartley asked.

"Mine," Cisco grinned impishly. If they hadn't been descending a staircase, he'd have probably bounced with glee. "You remember what this place looked like before. Very sleek and modern with white on white on white with stainless steel. No personality at all, which I suppose is a plus when you're trying to hide your personality from everyone else. But there was no way we were going to have something like that as our safe house. Caitlin picked the gray paint, which goes with just about anything which is why it's everywhere upstairs. She was going to go with plain white, but I vetoed that. But once I knew what the wall paint was, well... the glossy red cabinets look gorgeous, right? And the yellow and gray back-splash tiles ended up looking even better than I thought they would. And if you looks closely at the counter tops? The black quartz has flecks of yellow in it too. I was, perhaps, being a little petty but..."

"It looks awesome," Hartley agreed with a grin. "You can add 'interior decorator' to your myriad list of skills."

"Yup." Cisco popped the sound of the 'p', looking inordinately pleased with the compliment. "So, what do you think of the basement?"

While the upstairs looked largely like a normal house, if you ignored the metal 'panic' shutters - or whatever those were called - blocking out the windows (and making for an excellent movie watching atmosphere), the downstairs was more spartan looking. The gray wall color persisted, though it was a lighter shade. There was a kitchenette, a wall of computers, servers, and screens, some comfortable looking computer chairs that Hartley itched to test out for how comfy and ergonomic they probably were. Another couch, a darker blue than the one upstairs and a little smaller, was set next to a kitchenette, presumably in case the one upstairs was blocked off due to double lock down or if maybe whoever was down here was too lazy to go upstairs for snacks and something to drink. The kitchenette had the same color scheme as the upstairs kitchen and Hartley took the time now to check the counter top for those promised flecks of yellow.

It made him grin to skim his fingers over the dark surface and see golden glitter flicker as the shadows passed over them.

Then he poked his head through the doors. A bedroom with two bunk beds - twin beds on top and full sized beds on bottom, so they could pack a number of people down here if necessary. Hartley was willing to bet the couch pulled out into a sleeper too. The next door was a bathroom, the double sink being the biggest part of the room. The toilet was crammed into a small, claustrophobic little water closet and the shower was big enough for one person - barely - with an opaque glass door that would, presumably, give anyone in there a semblance of privacy. The last door off the main room was a functional laundry room with a second toilet hidden away in another small, claustrophobic water closet. Presumably so that if multiple people were hiding down here there wouldn't be too bad of a line to the bathroom. 

"So I guess the laundry room counts as the half bath?" Hartley asked.

"Yeah." Cisco looked pretty proud of his decorating skills, a grin on his face.

Hartley wandered over to the computers and grinned, "so, show me all the tech toys."

"If you'll show me yours?" Cisco teased, tapping his own wrists to indicate he meant Hartley's cuffs. "Those looked really impressive yesterday."

Obediently, Hartley held out his hands for Cisco. "I was inspired by Iron Man's evolving tech in the movies, to be honest. I wanted a less conspicuous version of my gloves."

Cisco skimmed his fingers over the metal cuffs, turning Hartley's hands this way and that in order to get a better look at the casing. "How do you activate them?" 

"Pressure switch. Usually I just..." Hartley brushed his wrists together, putting pressure on the center of each cuff. The silvery tech unthreaded from the casing, snaking its way up his fingers and forming a circle against each palm. "Just like my gloves, I have gesture based activation and can cycle through the frequencies programmed into it. Though it can only handle two right now." Hartley felt prickles running up his arms like chills as Cisco continued to run his fingers over the tech, over Hartley's hands and fingers, the touch so soft and gentle... "It's, uh... it's also active right now. I can either use the gesture that deactivates my gloves or re-trigger the pressure switch to put them back in sleep mode."

"Which is when they turn back into cuffs," Cisco murmured bending his head closer to Hartley's hands to look at some piece or other. Hartley couldn't really focus on exactly what Cisco was actually inspecting.

He was too busy imagining what it'd feel like if the cuffs weren't in the way and Cisco's mouth were to brush a kiss against his wrist.

"That is so cool," Cisco said, finally pulling back and letting Hartley re-trigger the pressure switches. "I don't suppose I can convince you to let me check out the specs?"

"Sure. Uh... sure. It's um. They're in my safe in my apartment. With the actual gloves." Hartley really, really hoped Cisco didn't notice him stumbling over his words like that...

"Well, my turn to show off," Cisco turned away to start turning on monitors. He had to stretch to reach up some for a few of them and if Hartley's eyes strayed to the sight of how Cisco's pants accented his butt?

Well... Cisco had a very nice looking butt.

* * *

Jesse woke up alone, again. Second night in a row.

Sighing, she rolled over and starfished on the bed. She wasn't sure what was up with Wally. But had been building ever since Barry disappeared into the Speed Force.

Or maybe a little while before then. Jesse had been pretty tied up trying to take care of both Earth-2 and Earth-3 with Jay's absence during the lead up to Savitar's defeat. So there was a blank area there where maybe something had changed for Wally.

She was pretty sure, at least, that what was going on with Wally wasn't really anything to do with her. He was still happy dating her - Jesse could see it in his eyes every time she arrived on Earth-1 or he showed up on Earth-2. But something was weighing on him and she wished he'd open up to her about it. After all, she wasn't exactly shy about discussing her problems about her dad's... team management style when it came to her work as Quick on her Earth. Wally did know he could come to her for support too, right?

Well, last night Jesse had rolled over and gone back to bed. But not tonight.

Tonight she was going to make it clear this relationship was reciprocal and that if he wanted to talk to her about what was bugging him, she'd listen and support him a hundred percent.

So Jesse got out of bed, pulled on a robe, and padded out in bare feet to the open plan living area, expecting to wait up there for Wally alone.

She's not alone in there, however. Hartley is already there, curled up in the recliner with a cup of... probably tea, Jesse didn't smell coffee. The window wall was uncovered and Hartley was staring out into the darkness outside, the room lit by the dimmest lighting setting.

"I left the tea kettle on the stove if you're looking to make some tea of your own," he said, glancing over at her.

"Sounds good. Where are the cups and the tea bags?" Jesse grinned as Hartley told her where to look, zipping across the room in a heartbeat to get everything set up for her drink. While the water took it's sweet time boiling, Jesse folded herself up into a blanket on the couch. "So what's your story with Team Flash, anyway?"

"I worked at STAR Labs before the accelerator exploded," Hartley replied. "But I found the very flaws that led to the explosion and was fired as part of a cover up. And then I tried my hand at revenge against Harrison, but it didn't go so well. Somehow I wound up helping out Cisco and the others here and there and was even back at STAR Labs full time for a few months after Harrison died in the singularity. But then your dad showed up and I decided I really just didn't have the distance from what happened with Harrison to deal with him and noped right on out of there over to Mercury Labs."

"So you knew the fake Wells pretty well then?" There was a sort of morbid fascination Jesse held for the man. He wasn't really an alternate version of her father, but the man who'd murdered and stolen the identity and appearance of her father's doppelganger. But at the same time, he'd been Harrison Wells for fifteen years. How much had he become the mask?

Hartley shrugged and drank his tea, not answering the question.

Probably for the best. Morbid fascination or not, there were probably a lot of things about the Reverse Flash that Jesse was better off not knowing.

"So did Wally wake you up when he went for a run or were you already awake?" she asked, changing the subject and flopping onto the couch to wait for the water to finish boiling.

"Already awake. But his departure did finally convince me to raid the house's tea stash. It's not too bad, actually." Hartley hesitated. "Is this a common occurrence for him lately?"

"Yeah." Jesse sighed. 

"If you want some privacy to talk to him, I can go listen to music in my room," he offered. "I mean, I'll still hear you two, but I'll be focusing on the music and probably a book to read on my phone, so... I won't really be paying attention to what's happening in here."

Cisco had mentioned Hartley had enhanced hearing, hadn't he? When he'd mentioned that if they were having sex that they shouldn't be having it here 'cause Hartley'd hear them.

Not that she and Wally were having sex. Wally wasn't interested and, while Jesse was interested in sex, she was more interested in Wally than in sex. So. 

(Her dad, of course, also thought she and Wally were having sex and the various shades of red and purple his face turned the one time he asked her if they were using birth control was hilarious. She'd said yes since abstinence was the safest form of birth control according to the woefully inadequate sex ed class she had back in high school. Also it wasn't really her dad's business if she was sexually active or not, so Jesse preferred to leave him to his assumptions. At least Cisco had acknowledged that they might not be sexually active, just that if they were then Hartley'd be able to hear them if something happened in this house just down the hall from him, so maybe don't?)

"Thanks, but if you don't mind staying up to talk with me until he gets back?" Jesse grinned. "I'm in a physics class this semester at uni and I hate going to dad for help cramming notes before a test."

"What do you need help with?" Hartley asked, looking interested.

Jesse zipped off to grab her notes and pour the water to let her tea bag steep. She handed the notes over to Hartley at regular speeds. "Ask me questions based off the info on those cards and see if I can answer them correctly. Dad always expects info above and beyond what the course teaches which can lead to me being overly verbose on tests and I had at least one teacher in a bio course tell me to stop showing off. Which, admittedly, made the professor a shitty teacher, but..." She shrugged. "It is what it is."

Hartley wrinkled his nose. "I've definitely had teachers like that in the past," he said. "When they say 'stop showing off' what they really mean is 'I don't like having students who are more knowledgeable than I am so shut up'."

"Ugh, yeah. It's awful." Jesse sighed. "Only one more semester, though, and it'll be graduation time. I'm soooo ready for that."

"Alright, ready for your first question?" Hartley asked, peering over the notes.

"Fire away."

* * *

Wally runs back into the house and into a study session. 

"Ah, I didn't wake you two, did I?" He asked, standing in front of the house entry and feeling very sheepish.

"Nope," Hartley said at the same time Jesse said, "yes."

Standing and stretching, Hartley handed Jesse back her notes. "You're going to ace that test," he assured her. "Goodnight Jesse. Night Wally."

Wally waited for Hartley to disappear into the back of the house before joining Jesse on the couch. "I'm sorry. I've been kind of restless lately."

"I noticed." Jesse's tone sounds a little wry, but her expression is reassuring. She held out a hand to him in askance. "Join me?"

Wally instantly went to cuddle with her on the couch, loving the way they slotted together so comfortably.

"You can talk to me, you know that right? About anything. Including what's been bothering you."

"It's going to sound stupid," Wally muttered, ducking his head.

Jesse rubbed his shoulder with one hand and reached out to capture one of Wally's hands with her other one. She brought that hand up to her mouth to drop a kiss against his knuckles, making Wally feel all warm and soft. Safe.

"If it's making you upset, then it's not stupid," she told him.

"I feel like I'm letting Barry down, because I'm not the same kind of hero he was. He could protect the city on his own, but I'm more like Cisco's backup. And Cisco's great at the hero thing, but if I were handling more of it, then he'd have more time to work on bringing back Barry and... I feel like Barry would be back already if I were just better at this," Wally admitted all in a rush, his insecurities flowing out in a speedy mess. He's pretty sure even Hartley's enhanced hearing wouldn't be able to make sense of what he just said.

But Jesse runs at the same speeds Wally does and she hears him just fine. This time she kisses his cheek. "It must be a little frustrating seeing me do what Barry used to. Protecting my Earth with a team, but no one there to back me up yet. Unless you're visiting. We made a good team against that alien starfish thing the other weekend."

Wally chuckled. "I neglected to mention that to dad. He'd have freaked." Then he sighed. "A little? Yeah. I mean... I just... I had this dream as a kid. That I'd take a cross country road trip after graduating high school. Just me and the open road and a very fast car. Now I don't even need the car, but... I'm so happy to have dad and Iris and Barry in my life and I want all the time with them I missed out on because mom was afraid to go back to dad and admit she was wrong... I want to make up for all that lost time. And I want to be here when Barry gets back."

He loved his mother. And he would never regret the life he had or the way she raised him. But after she died, he finally realized that he felt a lot like Iris did. Like their mother had stolen an important part of their lives from them by keeping them separate. Wally never did like being angry with his mother and now he'll never be able to talk it out with her. Instead he's left with pent up energy in his chest and a desire to just run. Any direction as long as it let him see the world.

There had to be more to the world than Central City and Keystone.

"But at the same time there's this... wanderlust I guess. I feel like I'm never going to find out who I'm really meant to be - what kind of person I am - if I stay here."

"I think..." Jesse hesitated for a moment. "I think that if what you really want, and need, is to leave Central then you should do that. It's not like that'd stop us from having our weekends together and video calls are a thing so you'll be able to stay in touch with your family from anywhere in the world. Especially if Cisco hooks you up with the best equipment." She hesitated again and then added, "Barry wouldn't want you to live his life, Wally. He'd want you to live yours."

Jesse was right. Barry would want Wally to be his own person, his own kind of hero. "You really are a genius, you know," he muttered, nuzzling into her embrace.

"So they tell me." Jesse kissed his forehead again. "I love you, Wally."

* * *

Hartley spends Sunday starting the process of catching up on Cisco's research into the Speed Force and the prison that had been constructed inside it where Barry now resided. When Cisco had contacted Hartley earlier that month, he hadn't been nearly so far along. Hartley'd consulted on some of the physics involved, but he didn't have much experience in the field of Speed Force studies. Admittedly, not really a thing but if there was then Cisco would be the expert.

And the evidence of Cisco's brilliance is breathtaking. Hartley might have lost some time fantasizing about worshiping Cisco's body while praising his genius that evening. (There's nothing more embarrassing than having a very enjoyable shower and then nearly running into the object of his fantasy while making a kitchen run to get one more of the cookies Jesse left behind before leaving. And then Cisco had wanted to talk while Hartley had wanted to spontaneously manifest new powers of invisibility. He'd known it was a bad idea the moment he'd gone under the spray, but he was so pent up with anxiety and frustration and Cisco was just so brilliant and made him feel so safe...)

But by Monday morning Hartley's going a little stir crazy and he's quite happy to get out of the house for a few hours. Doctor's appointment first. His stitches get checked along with his lungs. It's a familiar routine, sitting on the exam table with a very cold metal disk moving over his chest and back while he breathed in, held it for a moment, and then breathed out. 

"Your lungs are healing well. You should have finished the anti-biotics yesterday, right?"

Hartley nodded. His last dose had been the previous morning. "No side effects, that I noticed anyway."

"Good. Like I said, your lungs are improving, despite that asthma attack I hear you had on Friday, was it?" When Hartley affirmed that information, the doctor continued, "try to keep the strenuous activity to a minimum for the next few weeks. I don't think you'll need another checkup, but if you feel unusually short of breath do not hesitate to use your inhaler and make an appointment."

Hartley nodded and headed back to the lobby where Cisco was waiting for him. He had to pause at the intake/outtake window to deal with the co-pay and the office attendant made an offhand comment about Cisco, calling him Hartley's boyfriend.

He probably should've corrected her, but... Hartley liked the sound of that. Cisco as his boyfriend...

Probably too much to wish for. Hartley needed a break. Just for a little while. Maybe he could have that at Mercury.

* * *

Cisco couldn't find Hartley.

They'd gone to Mercury together after dropping by the doctor's office. They went to Dr. McGee's office first to finalize the joint project between Mercury and STAR. Officially they were conducting a joint research project into extra-dimensional energy, specifically as related to theoretical wormholes and utilizing data collected from both STAR Labs failed accelerator experiment and the smaller scale, successful run of the accelerator they did over a year ago. 

It was weird to talk about that particular accelerator run right now. It had ended with Barry trapped in the speed force and they'd thought he was dead. It had taken Cisco's powers to bridge the gap and give Iris the chance she'd needed to bring Barry back. And now they were back at that point, just without Zoom or a zombie knocking at their door. But it was going to take more than Cisco's powers and Iris' love to bring Barry back this time.

The whole time, Hartley's new laptop sat in the corner being re-imaged. They had lunch and then moved to Hartley's office. It had an excellent view of the city. 

Cisco went to the bathroom. He wasn't even gone for long. But he gets back to Hartley's office and... it's empty. Laptop on the desk, loading circle still spinning. But no Hartley Rathaway.

He panics for half a second before switching to irritation. Hartley must've walked out. And Cisco wasn't familiar enough with the building to know where he'd go. Also he only had a visitor's badge, so if Hartley went anywhere requiring a badge swipe then Cisco was stuck.

Letting out a deep breath, Cisco touched the back of Hartley's chair. His eyes flickered closed and he watched a blue tinted Hartley walk out into the hallway and go into another office around the corner.

What was so damn important he couldn't wait for Cisco to come back from the bathroom?

Making a frustrated noise, Cisco retraced Hartley's path. The infuriating physicist was still in the other office, having an argument with the office's owner. The office door was open a crack, so it was easy for Cisco to hear the raised voices within.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about. The data that's there now is the same data that was there when the project completed."

"Oh really?" Hartley's smug tone was quite familiar. "Then explain this discrepancy." 

Cisco pulled the door shut and waited, impatiently, for whatever was going on in there to finish up. Crossed his arms, leaned back against the wall, and told himself he was most definitely not pouting.

Hartley came out of the office a few minutes later, smug expression turning into a wince at the look of irritation on Cisco's face.

"You couldn't have waited?" Cisco asked dryly.

Hartley rolled his eyes. "I barely went anywhere."

One of Cisco's eyebrows went up.

"What are the odds I'm going to be attacked here?" Hartley complained turning and stalking down the hallway.

"One of Zoom's lackey's blew up Mercury Lab's previous headquarters," Cisco reminded Hartley patiently.

"That wasn't about me, though," Hartley muttered. Now he was definitely pouting. "And I remember quite well since I was there that night. Siren's powers fucking hurt."

Cisco grimaced. Yeah, he wouldn't want to have enhanced hearing and find himself at the wrong end of a Canary Cry... or, well, Siren Scream in that case. Even at a distance it must've sucked to be Hartley that night. But Barry had gotten him, and everyone else at Mercury Labs, out safely.

"You've been attacked in your home and your parents home, Hartley," Cisco finally said. "And I don't want you to be attacked while you're alone again." Because he'd almost been too late the first time and only known about the second attack because Hartley had enough time to set off the alert on his phone. Cisco couldn't bear the thought of third time being the charm... for the bad guys.

Hartley heaved a sigh. "Yeah, okay. Fair point. I'm just going a little stir crazy from being cooped up for the last few days. And also way more non-work related social interaction than I'm used to."

The last part made Cisco smile in amusement. "So that guy you went to chew out?"

"He has a bad habit of delegating more of his work than he should onto his subordinates," Hartley told him. "One of the projects that Dr. McGee identified was one where he was in charge of maintaining the test equipment. So he should have been aware of any sudden changes to the equipment's efficiency ratings. Going over reports every day. The old results showed that equipment that should've been on the brink of replacement were rating higher than new equipment. Which was weird and one of the things I'd flagged for Dr. McGee to have audited. But once the audit began..."

"The numbers on those reports changed to reflect reality," Cisco surmised. 

"Yeah. And with the equipment now showing signs that it all should have been repaired or replaced in the last six months... any processing or test data collected with that equipment is now suspect. And if we're being sabotaged this badly... it makes me wonder if other labs are being effected too." Hartley's gaze went distant, clearly lost in thought. "But that still doesn't explain why they're going after me personally. So what that I blew the whistle? What could they possibly think I've seen that's worth murdering over?"

"Something that points to the reason why the sabotage is happening in the first place," Cisco mused. "What was it that tipped you off to something wrong in the first place?"

"We have a quarterly fun event fund," Hartley said. "I was planning on taking my team to an escape room. But then the money for the event was missing. When I started looking into that, it was suddenly there again. Clerical error, or so I was told. Except then there was less money in the allotted budget for the project itself..."

"Did you at least get to do the escape room?" Cisco asked.

"Oh, yeah. And it was pretty fun too. There were enough of us that we had to split into two groups though, so I was in the group that did the Orient Express themed escape room; everyone else was in the Cursed Pyramid room." Hartley grinned at the memory and Cisco's glad he had at least some kind of break from the stress at the start of the whole snafu. "I chased the missing money from the budget afterwards, only that reappeared too. Which made me suspicious that someone was moving money around to cover their embezzlement. It's kind of a classic move. Person takes money from account A, then moves money from accounts B and C to account A to make up for the stolen money, but then they have to cover B and C... and of course for every money shift, they take a little more off the top for themselves. But it's also one of the easiest to catch. If I hadn't noticed the money moving around, I probably wouldn't have found the other embezzlement going on though. That one was more along the lines of taking a few cents here and there from multiple accounts so it all gets rounded out on the assumption it was caused by clerical errors somewhere. Approved purchases that were a few cents more expensive than expected... that sort of thing. Except you start having a lot of those all over the place and... it's a slower theft, but it all adds up eventually and is less likely to be caught.

"But I really don't think this has to do with the money. Every half-baked cop show and it's dog will say the most common motivations for murder are love and money..."

"But they're not generally dealing with metahuman assassins," Cisco filled in.

"Exactly." He frowned and then added, "and they're coming after me, but not Dr. McGee. So that leads me all the way back around to thinking it has to be something I've seen, but she hasn't. I looked over a bunch of projects before I saw clued into the intellectual theft happening. One of the managers was taking credit for his subordinates patents. Two in particular - an Asian woman and a black guy, so not only was he stealing other people's work but he was being racist about it too."

"Yikes," Cisco hissed, scrunching up his nose. "That's... how did they not notice it was happening?" 

Hartley shrugged. "Once the patent documents are submitted to legal, it can take years for them to be processed and approved and officially all the patents belong to Mercury. All new patent applications require managerial approval before sending it on to legal, which is where I assume the guy re-wrote the documents to include his name instead of theirs. The process is supposed to prevent frivolous patents from being submitted so that our patent lawyers aren't tied up unnecessarily but also to keep people from artificially inflating the number of patents they submit in a year. There are bonuses involved... but if someone submits, say, upwards of twenty patents in a year then are they going to notice if one or two fall through the cracks?"

"I would," Cisco muttered.

"So would I, but we're both meticulous about keeping track of our work. There were a few complaints that I found that tied into patents he stole credit for but he tried to bury those too. It also spanned a lot of projects, so I..." Hartley trailed off. Cisco could practically see a lightbulb flashing over the guy's head.

"What is it?"

"I need to see Dr. McGee again," he said, hurrying for the door. "Come on."

* * *

"My computer is still rebooting for the umpteenth time. I need to borrow yours. And also show you something," Hartley announced when Dr. McGee opened her office door, Cisco trailing along behind him.

"Be my guest," Tina said, smiling in bemusement as she stood aside.

"Thanks," Hartley said, settling at her desk. "When I was first looking into the embezzling, I looked into Project Dreamer. There was evidence of someone moving funds around similar to what they'd done to my fun event funds and project budget. I came back to it when I was looking into the patent thefts, but I didn't see any evidence of it happening on that project. So while I included the financial documents in what I presented to you, I didn't include any of the project's reports or data documents."

"Because none of it pointed to patent theft, so you didn't think it was relevant," Tina filled in. "Project Dreamer... that was the one where we were reverse engineering some of the Dominator tech found in the wreckage of one of their ships that crashed during the fight, wasn't it?"

"Yup, I think it came inside the atmosphere and Mardon brought it down," Hartley said absently, looking for the files.

"It was going after the Waverider while we were trying to stop the bomb headed for Central. One of the Mardon's rare good deeds, though admittedly self-serving since he lives here. Didn't earn him a full pardon but, from what I heard from Barry, it knocked a good 70% off his sentence and he'll be out on probation next year," Cisco shrugged and added, "I know he'd just, like, turn around and rob a bank or something but I did think it was a little unfair that Heatwave got a full pardon and Mardon didn't."

"He's got a standing offer to let us study his powers and the promise of a hefty paycheck attached to it," Tina said absently. "I'm hoping he'll take me up on it for science reasons, but keeping him out of crime would be nice too."

Hartley snorted in amusement. "Here we go. Dreamer's resources were repurposed into other projects and those should probably be checked for data discrepancies, but... I think those are a red herring. Dr. McGee, take a look at this."

"Four crates of Dominator technology... marked as being stored until Project Dreamer can be restarted next year in conjunction with Palmer Tech's R&D. What about it?" Tina asked, frowning in confusion.

"Four crates... but when I last checked, there were six. Two crates are missing." Hartley leaned back in Tina's chair, looking between his boss and Cisco. "Missing Dominator tech... now that is worth sending assassins over."

"They wanted the audit so distracted by the other projects that were hacked that we wouldn't notice the altered manifest." Tina grimaced. "And now I'm going to have to discuss this with ARGUS. Lovely. Hopefully once it's known ARGUS is looking into this, you'll be in the clear Hartley."

"I hope so." Hartley stared balefully at the screen for a long moment. "I really, really hope so. And I hope someone rubs it in that the only reason I noticed this is because they tried to kill me." He got out of Tina's chair, conceding the seat back to her.

"I'll make sure Lyla gets your request," Tina responded dryly.

* * *

That evening, back at the safehouse, Cisco felt himself relax a little. He'd contacted Dig and asked him to pass along a request to Lyla regarding the status of the inquiry into the missing Dominator tech, since they'd need to know when Hartley would be safe from assassins on his own again. But they'd hit upon the most likely reason for the assassins in the first place, so it was likely Hartley's ordeal was finally headed towards a good conclusion.

Cisco had promised to keep him safe, though, and he was going to keep hovering over Hartley protectively until this whole thing was wrapped up with a neat bow.

Hartley seemed to be in better spirits too, arguing with Wally over what kind of pasta to make for dinner. He'd decided that they weren't doing yet another night of take out and was planning on being the first to actually cook in the Flash themed kitchen. Wally was all for this plan, but the two were spaghetti versus penne pasta and determining what additional ingredients Wally would need to make a grocery store run for. 

Since anything those two ended up cooking together would no doubt be delicious, Cisco was stretched out on the couch with _Fringe_ running on the Emby. In fact, Cisco might've been nodding off a little when Hartley said, loudly, "there's a car pulling into the driveway. It doesn't sound like Joe's."

"You should go downstairs." Cisco paused his show and stood up.

When Hartley made to argue, Cisco cocked his head at Wally, who rushed Hartley out of sight in a flash. Cisco would probably pay for that later, but better safe than sorry. He'd promised to keep Hartley safe. Promised both Hartley and himself and, in a somewhat unspoken and roundabout way, promised Rachel too.

So Cisco approached the door and, when the knocking started, he was right there to look out through the peep hole to see who was there. 

He had to rest his forehead against the door for a moment before checking again. And then, slowly, Cisco opened the door.

"Hi Caitlin."

"Hi Cisco."


End file.
